We need to improve communication is not the same as this is what we need to do to improve communication, and not the same as this is what I am going to do to improve communication. In fact, these things are miles away from each other.
Life in organizations is often lived at the level of diagnosis. Oh God, how good we are at diagnosis. Sometimes people spend the day hoping from one meeting to another and providing an assessment, a view, a piece of diagnosis. Meeting one: we need to fix the supply issue. Meeting two: the product recall is a fiasco. Meeting three: we need to make sure we get the candidate right. With coffee in between. But who is going to at least start addressing the problem? You would have thought that somebody in the room. But what if the rest of the meeting participants are equally good at diagnosing but nobody really jumps in?
It may be that
a. They don’t have the authority (but somebody has it somewhere)
b. They don’t need the authority but they don’t take accountability
c. They feel they need permission to take the accountability
And another hundred or so reasons
The diagnosis life without action is exhausting.
The organization which main core competence is admiring problems is equally wearing.
It’s Ok if you don’t have a solution but you point to them. But if you start with ‘The problem is’, please don’t use a full stop after the description of the problem. The word ‘and’ is required.
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